We all have gifts and dreams, grand plans for our future and for our life, and brilliant ideas for our career and ministry. Some of us have things that we are naturally gifted to do, things that perhaps we have not had to work for, but just seemed innately a part of us from birth. And then some of us have had to practice much…pouring out our blood, sweat and tears in order to finally be fluent in our gifts. Whichever the case may be, it can become very comfortable to just rest in that job or that area of ministry, simply because we “know” it. Maybe it’s something that never makes us nervous or causes us anxiety, or something that we don’t have to stress over or give much thought to, something that perhaps we know (and probably have been told) that we do well. However, God never called us to be “comfortable.” He has called us to depend completely on Him.
In Luke 12:11-12, Jesus tells His disciples, “When you are
brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities do not worry about how you
will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you
at that time what you should say.” You see, it didn’t matter whether or not the
disciples were great orators, or whether they had ever made a speech in their
life, because the Holy Spirit would equip them at the appointed time with
exactly what they needed. They had to depend solely on Him, and not on themselves.
Often we have settled so well into the cushy recliner of
whatever gift or calling we may be operating in, and we have our feet propped
up so high and our chair laid back so far that we cease to fully seek Him or
depend on Him for direction in that area. That is a dangerous place to be. When
we let go of His hand and just set off on cruise control, leaving Him behind
and heading away from His wisdom and authority, we are likely to find ourselves
falling flat on our face. What a humbling learning experience that is (speaking
strictly from experience).
When we are doing what the Lord has called us to do, it is
vitally important that we seek His face and listen to His voice for each and
every step that we take. We need to lean into Him so that we can feel His
heartbeat, and not go off following the beat of a very different drummer – the flesh.
Something very important to remember about that cushy
recliner of gifting that we are so used to, is that it is usually not the ONLY
gift He has placed in us. You may believe that you are best used and well
fitted for a certain area of ministry or a career that you have operated in for
years, and suddenly you feel that tugging on your heart towards a different
area that you possibly never thought of, and that certainly is not comfortable.
Over the last eight years of my life, God has taken me in
directions I never expected and allowed me to learn and experience things I
never thought possible. He taught me not to be satisfied with the “now,” but to
stretch out and move forward. And just in the past year and a half, he has
stretched me beyond what I ever dreamed! I didn’t feel like I was good enough
to do the things that He was leading me to do, but HE worked through me. HE is
always faithful to do the work when we allow Him to use us in the way that He
wants to.
Remember that the bible says God will equip us for what He has called us to.
You may not feel that you are good enough, and you may feel that so many others
would be a better choice than you, but God chose YOU. Depend on that. Trust in
that. Trust in Him! He will never leave us, nor forsake us, and He that has
begun a good work in us will be faithful to see it through. Feeling
uncomfortable and inadequate is actually a very blessed place to be because it
forces us to trust completely in Him. It’s time to stop running to other people
for their opinions on what we need to do, when we need to be running to our
Creator, our Savior, and our Lord. He is the only one who knows exactly what He
has placed in each of us, and He is the only one that can see it through to
fruition. So let’s push our footrest down, raise our chair upright and stand up
straight and tall, as we begin to walk out God’s will for our lives. God didn’t
call us to be comfortable. He called us to be available…all to His glory!
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